WHAT ARE THEY DOING!?
By now, it shouldn’t be any surprise to country music fans, especially in Oklahoma and Texas, that the legendary Red Dirt outfit known as Cross Canadian Ragweed are up to something special.
Formed in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in the mid-90s, the Cody Canada-fronted band became a cornerstone of the Red Dirt movement before calling it quits in 2010. Take a look at any of the modern day country rockers coming out of Texas and Oklahoma, artists like Kolby Cooper, Koe Wetzel, Dylan Wheeler, Treaty Oak Revival, Kody West, Tanner Usrey… I’d bet they would all cite Ragweed as a major influence.
Anyways, Cross Canadian Ragweed has been defunct since 2010, with Cody Canada and Jeremey Plato going on to form Cody Canada and the Departed. But a couple weeks back, Cross Canadian Ragweed updated their Facebook page for the first time since 2011, sending fans into an immediate frenzy. Then, they updated their website to feature a 2025 landing page, and changed the cover photo on their social media pages.
And now, another piece of the puzzle, featuring the great Koe Wetzel. In what looks to be some form of a Ragweed logo Christmas present, the tag reads “To Koe, From Ragweed.” They also started a grid photo on their Instagram page featuring an older photo from around 2010.
So what could it be? Is Ragweed reuniting to open some shows for Koe? Are they teaming up to release something together? Does it have anything to do with Koe’s annual Christmas tour? Is Koe recording some Ragweed songs with their blessing but no reuniting? Is it something far less exciting? It’s anyone’s guess…
All I can say is I’m pumped.
One of Koe Wetzel’s biggest hits is a song called “Ragweed,” a tribute of sorts to the band. It was included on his 2019 album Harold Saul High, and quickly became a fan-favorite. And as it turns out, Koe actually wanted Cody to sing and play guitar on it with him, and when we had Cody on the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast a couple years ago, he gave a rare interview and explained why he didn’t do it.
“There were two things. The first thing is, he asked me, I didn’t know him. I had heard of him because of the Larry Joe Taylor Festival, and Larry Joe Taylor was managing him and behind him.
So I’ve known Larry Joe for a couple of decades, actually three decades. I played the 6th annual Larry Joe Taylor Festival when I was 17 years old… And he always has a good ear, and he’s a good guy, and I trust him, you know?
He called me and said that there was this kid named Koe Wetzel and he was recording a song called ‘I Miss Ragweed,’ or ‘She Misses Ragweed,’ and asked me to sing on it and play guitar.”
Cody confessed that he just wasn’t very comfortable singing on a tribute song that was essentially about himself. And honestly, hard to blame it for it… I imagine it would fee a little weird:
“And I said, ‘Man, that’s really sweet, that’s very nice and kind, but I can’t do that. And it’s not because of the band, it’s just because I’m not that kind of, I mean, I don’t even say my own name.’
I’m just not that kind of person, and I appreciate it and I was 100% behind him.”
In our conversation back in 2022, Cody also reiterated the fact (with great conviction) that they would never get back together or make music again, but hey, things change… certainly seems that way now.
Stay tuned… and in the meantime, turn up a little Ragweed from Koe Wetzel:
You can listen to the entire podcast episode below:
